Bookshare Ireland is a free service that provides students with dyslexia, blindness, vision impairment or other reading barriers with access to a vast collection of digital books. Students can customise their reading experience to suit their individual needs, whether for school, college, work or for the joy of reading.
Benefits of Bookshare.ie:
- Customisable Text: Adjust the font size, style and background colour to make reading easier.
- Read-Aloud Option: Books can be read aloud using text-to-speech technology, helping with decoding and fluency.
- Wide Selection: Access thousands of digital books across different reading levels, including popular fiction and textbooks.
How to Get Started:
- Sign Up: Visit Bookshare.ie and create an account for your child using a email set up in their name. Be sure to use Bookshare.ie, the Irish version, not the American version (bookshare.org).
- Verification: As part of the verification process, Bookshare.ie will provide you with a document to be completed by your child’s school. This document will confirm that your child has a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia. Once you have this document, please email it to eolas@realtnamara.ie to be verified by the relevant teacher.
- Choosing a Download Format: When setting up your child’s account, you will be asked to select a preferred download format. The DAISY format is a good option to choose for now, as it includes both text and audio. However, the preferred format can be changed at any time if needed.
Bookshare with the EasyReader App
- You can access your Bookshare Books using the EasyReader App by Dolphin. Once the EasyReader App is downloaded to your device, you can then search Bookshare Ireland and download books to your smart phone or tablet. The Webinar in the link below shows you how to search, download and make the most of the EasyReader App.
Parental Supervision:
For children under the age of 18, it is recommended that a parent, guardian or teacher assist with the search and download of books to ensure that age-appropriate content is accessed.